Vanakam

Vanakam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sausa/

Monday, November 3, 2008

Photo Challenge # 23 make over

In my photo challenge group we have the opposite challenge from last week. Last week was click and post with no editing and this week we can dress and doll the image in any way we choose. This for me is a huge challenge. Photo shop is very complex and intimidating to me. It is a steep learning curve and I am learning but still very confused. Here is my entry. I duplicated the image. Turned it black and white. Copy and pasted and then erased to reveal the flowers. I then used an action set downloaded from http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm
I used Aly's vintage set. I then used the sharpen tool to add sparkle to the eye and the burn tool to deepen the eye color. I also used the burn tool on the lips. See I told you I was confused. Don't know what I did and not sure if I like it but this is what I have done. Please leave some constructive criticism. i was really hoping to have her lip color show through and deepen it so it looked a little like lipstick but not too deep. If you know how please e-mail me directions.
BEFORE
AFTER
I love when the kids pick me dandelions and this was last week on our walk in the park. Dandelions are very special as they are the first flowers a child picks for theirparents and every year on mother's day my kids pick me dandelions. That may sound strange but it really is from them. Daddy did not give them money or take them to a store to but me some. They had a blast running around on the grass scooping up every yellow dandelion they could find and the pure joy they have and the simple pleasure of watching them is priceless. I just love it. With that I will share this poem I found on the internet. It is very touching and I love it.
The dandelion who wanted to see the world Once there was a dandelion who wanted to see the world. It may seem strange to you that a dandelion should have such notions. But consider her situation. A small circle of leaves in the middle of a large lawn, all she had ever seen was the dirt beneath, a forest of grass all around, and a patch of sky above. This didn't satisfy her. She didn't know what else there was to see, but she was sure there must be something. And she was determined that sooner or later she would discover it for herself and she certainly tried. The thought naturally came to her quite early that she should grow her leaves above the surrounding grass. Then she would be able to see whatever there was beyond her immediate neighbourhood. And this she tried to do but every week something terrible happened. Perhaps you could help with the sound effects. We need the noise of somebody trying to start up a rotary mower. It's a bit like a sneeze? Ka-CHOO-hoo . . . . . . . Ka-CHOO-hoo . . . . . . . Ka-CHOO-kata . . . . . . . Ka-CHOO-kata . . . And then suddenly the mower comes to life. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . . . . . Those were the sounds that brought awful fear to the heart of the dandelion. For a while the noise would keep its distance: Brrrrrrrrrrrr . . . . . Then it would come close and very loud: BRRRRRRRRRRRR . . . . . Then it would move off again. But always, at last, it would happen. A shadow would suddenly come over her. There would be a whirring and a smashing and a mangling in the midst of incredible noise. A second later, when it was over, her leaves were gone, and she had been chopped back to the level of the ground. It was a dreadful experience. For two days afterwards the dandelion would be in a state of shock. Then, when she began to get her wits back, she would say to herself: "Why do I bother?" But then she would take courage and begin all over. She would send up young leaves and try again. And then, one week, it didn't happen. The horrible noise didn't start up. Her leaves were allowed to grow higher than they had ever gone before. The reason for that, though the dandelion didn't know it, was that the family had gone off for their summer holiday. All she knew was that this time no dreadful shadow descended on her to chop and crush and mangle. She pushed her leaves higher, and she saw things that she had never seen before. She saw other growing things besides blades of grass. She saw flowers in beautiful colours. She saw shapes that we would recognise as fences and sheds and houses. It was all very exciting, even if a little bit hard to understand. With great daring, she then began to do something she had never done before, something she had only just realised she could do. She sent up a stem with a bud on the end. "Goodness," she thought, "I'm going to have a flower! I wonder what colour it will be!" When the flower opened she found she was a beautiful golden yellow, and she was pleased. Now she could see all sorts of things, and she just wished she could go to explore them more closely. The fence, the house, the flowers, even moving things - butterflies and birds, cars passing beyond the fence. It was all very strange, and a bit confusing. But it was wonderful. After a while the petals of her flower began to dry up, shrivel, and fall away. But the dandelion didn't mind that. Because she suddenly realised there was something else she could do, something else she could become, just as lovely in its own way as the flower. Soon, on the end of the stem where the flower had been, there was a marvellous round, white, fluffy ball. It was about that time that the family came back from holiday. "Goodness!" Father said, as he stopped the car in the driveway. "The very first thing I must do is put the mower through the lawn." "Oh look!" said one of the children, "There's a dandelion!" She ran over. The dandelion found herself plucked from the ground and lifted high. The child blew. The downy seeds danced away on her breath . . . . And the dandelion was free at last, free to travel in a hundred directions. She was off to see the world. Evan Lewis
The simple pleasures in life should define childhood and every child should enjoy the dandelions. There is no harm in the growns joining in on the fun.

Day in Truckee

These pictures are from Friday. We spent the day in Truckee and visited dad at his office. Most of the co-workers passed out candy to kids. the kids had a blast and Priyasha wants to go to work with daddy everyday. She is a daddy's little girl.

pumpkin carving

It was a lot fun doing. I have to admit thought that I enjoyed the end result more than I enjoyed the process. After four pumpkins I was exhausted and there was a huge mess to clean up. We'll do it again next year.

Classroom favors

I made these coffin boxes and we found candy that were in the body parts shape. It was freaky looking. There feet, hand, eye ball, teeth. The kids helped fill the box. I cut them on my silohuette using a GSD file.I used chalk to age the box. I then used spider web to wrap the boxes up. The kids had a blast. They goofed around and tried to look scary.The kids in the class loved the boxes. Thanks for looking.

Batman and tinkerbell

Behind on pictures

I know Halloween has been over for more than two days but I have soooooo many pictures that I want to share. I will make slide shows and add them here. Thanks for looking. Trick or treating on Willow Ranch Trail

Sunday, November 2, 2008

For my Sparks visitor

I know I have a visitor from Sparks which is close to where I live. I wondering who you were. Please shoot me an e-mail. Just curious if I know you. Thanks for checking out my blog. I welcome the visits.

Batman and Tinkerbell

Priyasha like any other little girl seems to like different things. She first fell in love with Dora and even said her name was Dora. Naturally she was Dora last year. She then discovered strawberry shortcake and we started a collection of all the dolls. She now loves Tinkerbell and I was surprised when she said she wanted to be Tinkerbell. I was certain she would want to be strawberry shortcake. The new Tinkerbell movie is out and she is thrilled to watch it. Maybe she will get it for Christmas. Pravan on the other hand loves all the super hero's. Last year he was black spider man and this year he wanted to be batman. Tara , thanks for the costume. It just worked out that her son was batman last year and this was a hand me down costume. He wanted to be batman before we got the costume so it was great. Pravan's favorite color is black so hopefully he changes it by next Halloween as I do not know what other super hero is black. Here are some pics for you to see. This is so long overdue.
Thanks for looking.

Batman meets Cowgirl

Pravan and Brooke have been friends for a while now and they affectionately refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. Brooke's parents are good family friends.They live in Truckee but our hubby's work together and went to school together. On Friday was Nevada day. Nevada is now 144 yrs old. It is a holiday in NV so school was out. We took the opportunity to visit the Vaughan's for the day. Brooke was in school for half the day and Pravan was thrilled when she came home. Here are some pics of them.They had not seen each other for months.

Truly magical

So who says fairy tales do not come true. They did for Todd and I. It has been a long long road to staying together and being happily married is no picnic either. Marriage is a lot of work. Years ago, twelve to be exact in 1997 I arrived in Philadelphia as a Aupair. I took care of two kids. A newborn and an 18 month old. The dad was Indian and the mom was American so the kids were a great mixture like my kids are.
I was at a park and so was Todd. I did not know him off course. The little girl was going through a phase of throwing away her shoes like most kids do. I worked for a rich family so the shoes were expensive and were from Nordstrom's. I was warned that no more shoes could be lost. On that day she threw away her shoe and Todd found it. He followed me down the street as I rushed on my way to bring them home for a nap and a bottle for the baby. I was late and needed to race back to the house. Todd handed me the shoe and said " your daughter lost her shoe " I made it clear that she was not my child and that I was single. He handed me his business card and asked me to call him.I thanked him and walked on and did not think about that for a while.
I told another friend of mine about what happened and she said that I should call him. Well I was not allowed to talk to guys never mind call them. I was quickly reminded that I was 10 000 miles away from home and my culture and I should enjoy life and my new found freedom. My friend really wanted to go to an adventure park called Dorny Park which was about 2 hours away. We did not drive so we needed someone to take us. She exhausted the list of people we knew with cars and then she suggested I call Todd.
I did and our first conversation was more than five hours long. He agreed to take us to the park and also brought his room mate along to hang out with my friend. There was instant chemistry between us for sure but I knew that it was a one day thing. boy was I wrong. We dated and there were so many obstacles along the way. Immigration, Atlantic Ocean when I had to leave for England and then the Atlantic Ocean when I left England to go back to South Africa. Well that is a whole other story and too long to talk about today. So we met with a shoe just like Cinderella.
Cinderella will always be my favorite princess. Well on Friday night while trick or treating I has Priyasha in the wagon and Pravan ran ahead of us. We stopped at a magic show that one of the neighbors put on on halloween night. Priyasha did great but finally she asked to go to the bathroom and we were at some body's house. I did not know them but they lived on the other end of my street. They let Priyasha use the bathroom. There were so many kids racing to the doors and there was so much excitement. I warned Pravan to stay where he was at the front door and not to go to the next house without me. He listened well but when I got back he was so excited.
" Mommy I found Cinderella's shoe " He showed it to me and I was so amused. I laughed and took pictures of it. He then said " Cinderella's name is Taylor " He knew who it belonged to so we did not have to send the kings men to all the houses and have every little girl try on the shoe. As we walked down the drive way the mom was carrying her little girl that was crying. Pravan put the shoe on her feet and she was happy again.Taylor is the sister of a little boy that is in Pravan's class. Isn't she beautiful. Well Pravan has never played with her before and I am not expecting any kind of ending with this. It was so magical for him and I could hardly contain my excitement and amusement. Here are some pics for you to see the story that happened.
A real Cinderella story on Willow Ranch Trail. There was no prince just batman. So a small twist but a great one.
Pravan loved helping with this trick. They got a goodie bag with two tricks in it and Pravan has spent a lot of time practicing it.
Well these two will live happily ever after but maybe not together. Tracy your daughter is beautiful and some day her Prince will really come and sweep her off her feet and when that day happens remember that you will not loose your daughter you will gain a son.From one mom to another I hope it is not too soon. Thanks for loaning Cinderella to us for the moment !